Three Nashville hospitals to grow in $500M TriStar expansion

TriStar Health plans to will add new floors, beds and parking to Tristar Centennial Medical Center and other facilities

Michael Schwab, The Tennessean

TriStar Health is planning more than $500 million of expansion projects at six Middle Tennessee hospitals over the next three years, including adding beds and entire floors to one of the Nashville's largest medical facilities.

The additions are a direct result of Nashville’s dramatic growth, which is projected to continue both in the city and surrounding communities like Mt. Juliet and Smyrna, said Heather Rohan, TriStar CEO.

Heather Rohan

Heather Rohan

Submitted

Rohan said more people inevitably means more patients, so TriStar is expanding now. Some of the new facilities are expected to be operational within a year.

“We are in this hyper-growth market, not only in downtown Nashville, but all around the region,” Rohan told The Tennessean. “So we are making investments now to care for the patients that will need us both downtown and all the regions we serve.”

The biggest expansion will occur at TriStar Centennial Medical Center, a 657-bed facility in Midtown where a $124 million project will add four floors and a new joint replacement center.

Rohan said the new center has been envisioned as a "hospital within a hospital" where a joint replacement patient can receive all the stages of treatment — like preparatory classes, surgery and recovery therapy — in a single department.

"The whole idea is to create an experience with a very seamless and smooth transition of care from beginning to end," Rohan said.

TriStar Health has planned new floors and expanded services at TriStar Centennial Medical Center, seen here in a computer rendering.

Provided by TriStar

TriStar's expansion plans come only a few days after a competing hospital chain, Saint Thomas Health, announced it would build a new 86-bed facility dedicated to mental health in Metro Center. Officials hailed the Saint Thomas' facility as essential for Nashville, a city in desperate need to mental health services, but the Saint Thomas expansion is dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the TriStar announcement.

Expansion is also planned at TriStar Skyline Medical Center, which is north of downtown Nashville along Interstate 65, Tristar Summit Medical Center, which is east of the city along Interstate 40, and Tristar StoneCrest Medical Center, which is southeast of the city in Smyrna. All three hospitals will get upgrades next year.

At TriStar Skyline, construction will start next month on two new floors, an expanded emergency department and increase parking. Tristar Summit will add a “medical/surgical bed unit” to its eighth floor. TriStar StoneCrest will add 17 hospital beds and expand the behavioral health and clinical decision units in the emergency room.

Finally, TriStar plans to open two new facilities elsewhere in Middle Tennessee. A new behavioral health hospital, created through a partnership with Maury Regional Medical Center, will open in Columbia late next year, and an eight-bed emergency room facility has been planned in Mt. Juliet. The Mt. Juliet facility was the smallest announced on Monday, but it will likely be the first completed. It is expected to open in December.